About Van Gogh
I am stilling reading Dear Theo by Van Gogh these days. It was such nicely written that times I felt that had I only had the choice to own one book; this book would definitely be my option. When you read the book, you will find that VanGogh is not a maniac as most people imagine, but one who was full of passion, sympathy, and feelings towards others.
Also, if you love painting, from this book you will definitely get to know lots
of recommendable theories. Like concerning color, he wrote: As far as I understand it, we of course perfectly agree about black in nature. Absolute black does not really exist. But like white, it is present in almost every color, and forms
the grays—different in tone and strength. So that in nature one really sees nothing else but those tones or shades.
Then he recommended rather than attempting to talk with painters about pictures,
one should take more effort to talk with nature and learn from it. To get inspiration from nature, one must observe and keep it company as long as one can afford to. And he also said that right perspective must be gained before anything else. If you compose and draw from memory, and then haphazardly smear on whatever
you like, the attitude is even worse than to stop drawing at all.
Van Gogh, in his letters to Theo, also mentioned humanity: This humanity is the
salt of life; without it I do not care live, that is all. When he could scarcelylive on himself, he could never pass those people in need of help indifferently.
He said: I haven’t any humanist plans or projects for trying to help everybody
, but I am not ashamed to say that I for my part have always felt and shall feelthe need to love some fellow-creature.
When he hardly had enough food to suffice himself, he managed to nurse for six weeks or two months a poor miserable miner who had been burned. And when he was in need of help himself, he accommodated a desolate pregnant woman on the street,
and tried his best to look after her. I wonder who but one with a humane and
compassionate heart could manage that?
In addition to the aforementioned aspects, what impressed me was Van Gogh’s preference for books. He cared for reading and he read them in serenity. He would
tell you that Zola was really a second Balzac and it was splendid to read good books, as they made things clear. Also, he would say that from reading you were able to get perspective as well. From the descriptions in the books, you would beable to picture out things with a different view and feeling.
If I were surprised why his palette and brushes could bring us emotional and visual shock before, I am not now. Actually as you read through this book, you would find everything that happened became reasonable and imaginable. That he could
get successful was not coincidental; that he couldn’t be forgotten was not an accident. All this should largely attribute to his life-long dedication to and pursuit for drawing.
Van Gogh once said: The figure of a laborer—some furrows in a ploughed filed—abit of sand, sea and sky—are serious subjects, so difficult, but at the same time so beautiful, that it is indeed worth while to devote one’s life to the task of expressing the poetry hidden in them. It is amazing to see how he could find beauty and charm even at the filthiest corner on this planet. But I guess thatall was only because he was able to think and feel deeply. The hardship he wentthrough sharpened, rather than worsened, his eyes for the apparently negligiblecorners. And only judging on this, I think he should be named as one of the greatest painters in history.
